Surprisingly, the world was fine when she died. It continued and we found out that we had four days to choose a new turner. We did it. And it was over.

But for one person, it wasn’t over, though everything else was. His name was Logique. And he was in love with Still. He was always in love with Still. And Still had loved him too. And her love for him had run deep, like her waters.

The day she died Logique rushed over to her house. He didn’t take the time to put shoes on; he just ran. Still’s father met him at the door.

“I know how you feel, Logique,” Still’s father said. “It feels like someone threw a rock at you but the rock is moving in slow motion all over your body. It’s dragging you down and pushing you around. It’s horrible but you have to believe that you are going to be ok. I don’t even believe it right now, but maybe if we both try, we’ll be able to get through this just like the rest of the world. ”

“Where is she?” was all Logique could say.

When Logique walked into her room he saw only what was left of her. As was tradition, the moment the turner dies her brain and hands must be extracted from her because these were the most important parts of her body. They were the parts that controlled the earth. It was Still’s mother’s job to extract the hands and brain; this was called extrication. She had performed this procedure while her husband calmed her down and pushed away her tears so she could see what she was doing. She didn’t have a choice; she had to do it.

Logique understood and immediately sat down on Still’s bed by her side. He held what was left of her face in his weak hands. His tears heated up his face and he was on fire. He ripped off his sweater and covered her bare wrists with it to try to hide them. He knew she couldn’t hear him so he didn’t bother to tell her anything. But he knew that if he could, he would tell her that he would never run away from her memory and that he was going to stay as close to her as he could, so that he never lost her.

He spent the rest of the day walking around her room, playing her favorite music and finding the perfect outfit for her for her funeral. He finally chose a purple dress with gold speckles that she wore out to dinner with him once. It was the most beautiful she had ever been. He decided that she shouldn’t wear shoes because she had always protested them. Her parents agreed. Her parents loved watching him and talking to him about her. They talked about their memories. Logique stayed with them for the next three days until the funeral.

Still’s entire family arrived at her parents’ house around 7 in the morning on the day of the funeral. Logique knew them well. But he didn’t feel like talking. Instead, he spent the morning in Still’s room. She wasn’t there though. They had brought her to the funeral home the day before to be prepared for burial. He could still feel her there. He knew she was with him. He knew that after that day she would leave him. But he also knew that if she had had a choice she wouldn’t leave him. He knew that she didn’t have a choice. He knew that. So he used that time to get used to the fact that she was going to be gone.

When he left her room to make his way to the funeral he heard music in his head. Her favorites. Chopin and Tchaikovsky. He wanted to hear it. He loved listening because when he heard it, he knew she was with him. As they walked to the ceremony Logique tried to think about what he would do next. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do so that he could still be with her. He was dedicated to her for forever. He would never let her go. She was the world. She was the turner. And she was it.

After the funeral, Logique went home for the first time in four days. Logique lived alone. His parents had died when he was eight and he had lived alone ever since. He had always been organized, precise and mature, so his extended family let him live alone when his parents died. He had known Still even before that and she was all he needed. Still had been with him while he grieved about the death of his parents and while he dealt with the pressures of being lonely. She would take care of him and he would take care of her. He missed that now.

Logique stood in the doorway for just a moment to think about how Still had always paused before entering his home. She had always told him that it allowed her a moment to absorb the world in his home and find the mood. This was the moment Logique broke. Picturing her alive and standing in his doorway was too hard for him. He immediately called his friend and told him that he was going to leave for a while. He asked him to watch his house until he got back.

One week later Logique was on his ship preparing for his journey. He knew what he was going to do. He was going to find her. She was somewhere and he was going to find her. He was going to find the still waters somewhere in the world and he was
going to hold onto them as he would with Still. And he knew she would be there. Because he knew she was waiting for him. He set sail.

He knew that the calmest waters in the world were in the Pacific Ocean so he decided to search there. He started at the top of Canada and sailed down along the west coast of the United States. He knew she wouldn’t be at the shore. He knew the waters would be somewhere in the middle of the ocean so every day he journeyed farther and farther from the coast.

He brought two friends along with him because they wouldn’t let him go alone. He had warned them that if they came he wouldn’t speak to them. He told them that he needed to be alone and that he would act like they weren’t there if they came. They knew that it was too important for them not to go with him. So they went. And he treated them as if they didn’t exist.

While his friends sailed the ship, Logique would spent his time picturing Still and the water where she was waiting for him. She had always been breathtaking. Her hair was so light that it was almost blue. It matched her eyes. Her beautiful dark eyes. He ran over the things she had said to him and constantly watched her say “I love you” in his head. Sometimes he couldn’t think of anything else but her, but sometimes he would let his mind drift and picture other things. He would think about his future. He didn’t want to live without her, but her father had convinced him to stay alive.

“Just for a little while. Don’t react yet. Give it at least a year to let it settle in on you. Your perspective will change. I know you don’t believe me. But you are my family and you are just going to have to trust me. I cannot promise that it will get better, but things will change. I can promise that.” He had been right in fact. It had been only two weeks and he was starting to see why it was good that he was still alive. He had a chance to find her. And he was going to. He believed that he could do anything he tried because he knew that he would get her back. “Where could she have gone?” he would ask himself. “It isn’t possible for her to have left the earth because he was still there, so she must still be here somewhere.”

Sometimes Logique would think out loud while he was picturing her or replaying their conversations. His friends would just watch him for hours as he recited everything. And everything he remembered was exact. It was all perfect.

They reached a small island off the coast of Australia after traveling for four months. It was smooth and everything on the island seemed to fit together. The sand was perfectly curved to leave room for the trees, which hugged the sea where they reached its edge. While they stopped on the island to re-supply, Logique spent time sitting on the border between the sea and the sand. He let the water crash on his feet and sank into the sand. He remembered being at beaches with Still. She had loved to play in the water and lie in it so that just her head was sticking out. Sometimes she would lie on the bottom and wait as long as she could before coming back up for air.

It was when Logique was thinking about this that he decided to go in. He walked into the water slowly as she used to in order to adjust to the temperature change. The water was up to his waist when he started to cry. He pictured her spinning in the water not far from him. He felt the spray of the water she threw at him. He felt that being covered in water was going to be like being covered in her so he dunked himself under the water. He reached the bottom quickly and pumped his arms to keep him down there.

“Maybe I just won’t come up,” he said to himself. “Maybe I will just stay here forever and once I’m dead I will just drift through the sea.” Logique completely ignored the lack of oxygen left in his lungs and closed his eyes. Moments later one of his friends came sprinting into the water and dragged him up to the surface.

“What are ya doing, man? Come on. Remember what we are here for? We are on a mission to find her. You want to do that. Sometimes it seems easier to just let it go and let yourself go but you have a reason to live. To find her and make peace with her death. You do not want to die. You want to live.”

He shook his head but then after giving it some thought he nodded in response. He had given up for just a moment but he was coming back and realizing that he couldn’t give up now. She would have wanted him to continue. It was only about her.

They moved on to an island just a few miles away from the other one. But they had no luck in finding the still waters there either.

They had been unsuccessful for a long time. Logique was convinced that when he found it he would know. He knew it would be there ready for him when he got to it. And he knew that she and her still water would be there, waiting.

They traveled up the coast of Australia and through the islands surrounding Borneo still looking but they didn’t find the still waters. So they continued north to China and found a small beach where there was no sound.

It was as if noise had never existed and Logique’s friends had to say something just to make sure sound was still there. They heard themselves when they spoke aloud. But there was no other sound to be heard. “This is it,” Logique said. This was the first time he had spoken to them since they started the trip. “We’ll find her here.”

They got off the ship and wandered around the shore. Once they reached the shore Logique knew this wasn’t it. The water was still and silent but the beach was too tragic. Still had always been stoic and had never showed concern. She would have never chosen a place like this. The beach was rough, dark and evil. Jagged, black rocks coated in dead organisms pierced the ocean. The small stretch of beach coughed up mountains of dark sand mixed with mutant jellyfish that had washed up on the shore looking as if a shark had just spit them out. They seemed chewed but one could still make out that they were jellyfish. The beach itself seemed troubled. He knew something was wrong with it. He knew it wasn’t her. They left.

Logique continued to speak to his friends even after they left the beach. He thought he was ready to acknowledge their presence. He apologized for his behavior and they understood. “You really loved her, we get it,” they replied when he asked for their forgiveness. He told them that he had a new idea. “This time,” he told them, “we are going to sail straight into the heart of the Pacific Ocean; we will find her there.”

And off they went. They decided to travel along the Tropic of Cancer until they reached the midline between Mexico and China. They traveled due east, constantly looking off the ship for the place where the still waters rested. As they traveled, Logique told his friends his favorite stories about Still, which he had collected during their journey.

“It was a Sunday,” Logique told his friends while they kept an eye on the ocean “She had gone to some meeting only for the world’s protectors. She was upset because they had scolded her for letting the world stop for a few minutes the week before. I was the only one she ever told when she was upset. I was the only one she cried in front of. She didn’t cry that time but I could tell she was upset. We decided to spend some time planning our future and eating cookies in order to cheer her up. We talked about going out to sea. To see the ocean and the water and watch the waves on every inch of the earth. We talked about finding a way to rid her of her duties as the turner and maybe finding her a replacement. We wanted to go on a journey for the rest of our lives. But we never thought that anything like one of us dying would happen. I never thought she would die. I believed in our plan.”

His friends never really knew what to say after Logique told his touching stories. They would all just sit there in the afterglow of the story waiting for it to fade and watching for the still waters.

“She used to tell me how she thought that her mother was jealous of her and her father. She told me that she thought her mother thought it was unfair for her and her father to be part of the world’s protectors. I used to joke with her that when we got married and had children that would probably happen to me too because we would be in a similar situation. But she never laughed. She was always very serious about the happiness of her parents. So I would tell her that I was just joking and that I was sure her mother would love her and her father no matter what they were or what she wasn’t. This would always cheer her up. Well at least most of the time it would.”

“My parents always hated her. They thought our relationship was stupid because of who she was and because of her family. They never understood her like I did. I think it’s ironic that after they died she was all I had. I wonder what they would have thought if they had known that that was how it would end up. My parents really hated her. They always told me to get rid of her. But I never did. But they sure did push. I never told her about any of that. I didn’t want her memory of them to be like that. I just wanted her to remember them as they were. I didn’t want her to know how they really felt.

“We once spent two days reading a book together. She read 400 pages of it out loud to me on the first day and I read the last 400 out loud on the second day. It was the most incredible two days. I loved listening to her voice. It was always beautiful. And the book was so beautiful that I could have stayed there for forever. I miss listening to her. I miss watching her. I miss her smile and her eyes and her hair and her nose and her teeth and fingers and her. I miss her. I miss her. I miss HER. I MISS HER. WHERE IS SHE? STILL!! WHERE ARE YOU? How could you leave me?” With that Logique pulled out her old necklace that he kept in his pocket and threw it at one of his friends.

“Hey, man. Hey! Relax.” One of his friends yelled at him. “It’s gonna be ok. Don’t get so worked up. Why don’t you go lie down? How many times do I have to tell you not to be so sad? You just need to chill out and you’ll feel better.”

Even after that Logique continued with his stories the next day. But the stories got short. Logique couldn’t contain his anger, depression and sadness during the longer ones. So he told them things she had told him, things he remembered and places they had been together.

“We used to go out to dinner and then lie down in the park. We could just lie there for hours without even talking and we were perfectly happy. Sometimes we would get mud and leaves all over us but we didn’t care.

“She used to tell me that I was adorable. I would say something to nice to her and she would respond by saying ‘you’re adorable.’ I couldn’t think of a better response.

“Sometimes she would just tell me that she loved me. Out of nowhere for no reason. But I loved it every time.”

He often cried while he told these stories. It was sweet of him to reflect on those days but it also let his friends know that he was still completely obsessed with her and that she wouldn’t go away.

They found it on a Saturday evening. This time, Logique was sure. He knew this was it. He knew she was there. They sat for a while and watched the waves glide and swim and motion for him to come find her. They waited. They watched the water and learned about its characteristics. They watched it move yet stay still at the same time. Logique thought he could understand the water, just like he was always able to understand Still. He knew she was there and he just watched and waited for her to find him.

He couldn’t move his eyes away from the water. They had decided to drop anchor and just wait there. Logique’s friends eventually got tired after a couple days of being there and took a break from watching for her and went to sleep. After six days, Logique began to worry. Where was she? Why couldn’t he find her? Why couldn’t she find him? A permanent wrinkle set in on his forehead as he threw questions at the water.

It was after about eight days that he actually started speaking aloud to the water.

“Where is she?” he called to the water “What have you done with her? Where did you put her?”

But he never got a response. The sea just watched him and he watched it. And it stayed still as if it knew he was waiting.

“Maybe she isn’t here,” one of his friends suggested on the eve of the twelfth day.

“No,” he replied, “she’s here.”

His friends dropped it. They knew he would never change his mind, so they continued to live on the ship in the middle of the still waters. But they got tired of waiting and would ask him every other day whether he was ready to leave. But he never was.

Finally, on the twentieth day Logique made up his mind. “It wants me to come in. It wants me to come into the water and find her. She’s at the bottom. I just know it. And when I find her we will make a home there. Or we will find a way back in. Tomorrow morning at dawn I will jump in and find her. You can tie weights to my feet. And when you don’t see me anymore you can leave.” He told them.

“But can’t you swim to the bottom? Why do you need weights?” they asked him.

“If she isn’t there, then I don’t want to come back up. If she isn’t there, I will allow myself to die at the bottom. At least then I will have died with her and her still waters.” His friends didn’t bother to argue with him. He was too stubborn. So they helped him prepare.

The next morning at dawn, Logique was ready. They had tied small anchors to his feet in order to prepare him. Logique didn’t know how to say goodbye. So he didn’t. While his friends went to get him Still’s necklace so that he could give it back to Still, he jumped in. They came back at that moment and ran to the edge of the ship to see him. He had hit the water and all that was left of him was a splash.

Under the water, Logique drifted down to the bottom. When he reached the bottom he discovered that she was not there. But he felt her within him. He knew at that moment that he would never find her. And he knew that she wanted him to stop. So he waited at the bottom of the ocean for death to find him.

While he drowned, he remained absolutely still.